Texas Gardening: Texas Native Plant Pictures by color ( Other & Bicolor ), 0 by htop

htop wrote:
Common Cocklebur, Rough Cocklebur (Xanthium strumarium var. glabratum), Asteraceae Family, Texas native, annual, blooms in late summer through early fall, greenish blooms are inconspicuous, considered a weed by many

Common Cocklebur (Xanthium strumarium var. glabratum) is a weedy, taprooted, wetland native plant that is widely distributed throughtout Texas as well as other states. It can be found growing around watering holes, arroyas, playas, cropland (especially corn fields), fallow fields, degraded meadows, stabilized areas of beaches and sand dunes, the floodplain zone of rivers and ponds, vacant lots and disturbed areas. It prefers a loamy or sandy and moist to mesic (neither to moist nor too dry) soil.

Young seedlings give off toxic chemicals that can inhibit germination of other species of plants and/or kill off their seedlings. The toxicity level lessens as the plants mature. All classes of livestock may be poisoned by the cocklebur. Seedlings and seeds are the most toxic parts of the plants. Usually, livestock do not eat the seeds. However, if furnished hay or cottonseed feed contaminated with cocklebur serious problems and even death may occur. Pigs eating a sufficent amount of young plants may be poisoned. It does Deer occasionally eat the upper half of mature plants before the bur-like flowers form. Sometimes horses and cattle eat the mature plants with the bur-like flowers. This can lead to obstruction of the gastrointestinal tract. The purple finch and Franklin ground squirrel eat the seeds with no ill affects.

For more information, see its ebtry in the PlantFiles:
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/113795/

A colony shown in the mid-October in Bexar county near a drainage area ...

This message was edited Oct 18, 2005 6:50 AM